Westworldremains one of the most seminal films in science fiction thanks to Yul Brynner’s iconic performance as a gunslinger robot gone mad at a futurist theme park. How they’re going to stretch the simple concept of the original movie (and the original novel by Michael Crichton) into an ongoing series, has not been revealed, but the series has a pretty good pedigree and a home on HBO to start with.

Deadline announced the deal earlier today that the cable channel had greenlighted the series, which will be shepherded to the screen by J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Nolan and Jerry Weintraub. This will be the second team-up of Abrams and Nolan, who collaborate on Nolan’s series Person of Interest, about to go into its third season on CBS; Weintraub is the prolific producer behind the Karate Kid and Ocean’s 11 franchises. According to Deadline, the series will be “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.”

“The future of sin?” Now we’re talking. The pilot will be written by Lisa Joy (Burn Notice, Pushing Daisies), while Nolan will direct the pilot. Deadline adds that HBO’s commitment to the series is amongst the biggest in the channel’s history, but what that means is unknown, as no further details have been given at this time.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time a Westworld series has come to TV. Beyond Westworld ran a short five short in 1980 and followed an evil scientist trying to take over the world with the robots from the theme park, and the security chief of Delos Corporation who was trying to stop him.

So are you Bastards eager to see a Westworld TV show? Obviously, HBO engenders a lot of trust, and Person of Interest is actually a pretty good show that subverts CBS’ overly procedural format. Will Westworld be a hit? Time will tell.

Contributors

Buy Our Shirts

A news and entertainment blog for nerd pop culture. We are vulgar, debaucherous, and funny bastards that pilfer the internet (or interwebz, if you like) for the news you need so that you don't have to. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll often shake your fist in an angry fury but your time here is worth the price of admission (which is free for those of you not paying attention)